Elon’s Latest Twitter Gift, Adding ‘View Counts’ To Each Tweet, Is Being Treated Like A Lump Of Coal

Elon Musk is (he claims) stepping down as CEO of Twitter after users overwhelmingly voted for him to skedaddle. It’s not clear when he’s out — he says whenever he finds some “foolish” enough to take the gig, which isn’t exactly enticing to potential replacements — but on his way out he still has some more unpopular changes. Last week, when he wasn’t briefly suspending journalists who were critical of him, he introduced an instantly hated new rule banning links to rival social media platforms.

But that was nothing. For the holidays, he gave everyone a gift: Now people can see how many views or “impressions” each tweet received. It’s a great way for people to feel worse about a tweet that’s already not gotten many (or any) likes.

“Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen!” Musk excitedly (or perhaps sadistically) wrote on Christmas Eve Eve Eve. “This is normal for video. Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.” He later added, “Meant to say impressions.” (For the record, there was already a way of seeing this intel, but it was hidden under an area one had to click on to see. This puts it right out in the open, for all to see.)

Musk, whose excessively thin skin has become extra apparent over the last month and a half, basically forked over a fortune for a service where masses of people routinely drag him. (At least far right maniacs peddling misinformation adore him — or at least see ways to exploit his neuroses.) As such, it didn’t take long for the reviews to pour in. And they were worse than the ones for the 2019 motion picture Cats.

https://twitter.com/fayemikah/status/1606038436749549568

https://twitter.com/eternaIcurse/status/1606043595722706950

https://twitter.com/Trungles/status/1606056909835866112

Some pointed out that seeing “view counts” — especially measured against how few likes let alone re-tweets a post received — was not great for mental health.

There were jokes.

https://twitter.com/limitlessjest/status/1606049024821170177

https://twitter.com/dozygay/status/1606038093923946497

https://twitter.com/nemanjaYVR/status/1606064547860602881

But the consensus was that this was yet another blunder from a guy whose erratic antics are killing his most prized company.

https://twitter.com/JUNlPER/status/1606055182797635584